


The closer you are

by Devon (DevonKei)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, that's pretty much about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 18:56:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11258919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevonKei/pseuds/Devon
Summary: Increasing closeness increases fear.





	The closer you are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dyspholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyspholic/gifts).



> Written for Voltron Positivity Day!

It was impossible not to notice the changes in all of the paladins. With the constant flames of battle licking at their heels, it might have been easy to miss the small shifts in behaviour - easy to miss in the moment, yes, but impossible not to notice over time. Preparing for fights at the Garrison could never come close to describing the way your life can turn upside down. Priorities shift, perspectives broaden, or narrow down laser-thin. When every second is a run towards danger or from it, you change.

The paladins didn’t speak of this. Even though all of them could recognize it in each other, none chose to bring it up. After all, who could blame them for trying to forget about the ghosts lurking behind their own eyelids as well. 

Relationships grew stronger, deeper - faster. Extreme circumstances drove emotions high, and soon, they were more of a family than not. Bonds formed in days, hours, were valued more than years with friends back on Earth. The group simmered. Having only the team to rely on was as comforting as it was isolating. Of course, none of them would rather go through it all alone, but with every closer connection, grew fear. 

The closer you are, the more it hurts when you have to let go.

/.../

Some of the paladins were closer to begin with, and others were quickly drawn together more unexpectedly. It seemed, however, that Pidge was the first one to be loved by all paladins equally. As the youngest, she was adopted into the lives of her comrades as a sister - perhaps because of her own missing family, or maybe due to the protectiveness with which everyone regarded her on missions, even though she more often took the role of the savior than the one in need of saving. 

Although the sibling bond was acknowledged and even joked about sometimes to lighten the mood, even the paladins didn’t know that the Altean nickname Coran used for her, and Allura refused to translate, could mean _my child_. 

If Pidge had been the first to receive unconditional love from all, then Coran was the first to give it out. Perhaps only Allura understood, with not only their family, but the entirety of their race gone as well, that the young warriors shouldering the fate of the universe had in fact all become children to him. 

Allura and Shiro had both attempted to distance themselves from the group at one point. Positions of power were often those of lonesomeness, and so both leaders too young for their burdens chose to compartmentalize instead, to try and not love their friends, in an attempt to make their jobs as leaders easier. Both attempts failed, and the two heads of Voltron eventually found comfort in each other and the rest of the paladins. However, this didn’t ease the most difficult part of leading - sending troops off to battle.

The heart of Voltron - residing in Hunk - proved its durability, taking hit after hit with every minor and not so minor injury the paladins sustained. Often, the ache in his chest was large enough to drive him away from his hurt friends, to find reassurance in the routine of cooking or tinkering with his tools. No smell of cookies or motor oil could make him forget though, that baking pans and metal scraps weren’t even remotely on his mind.

Keith’s feelings for the paladins might have been as hard for them to spot as it was for him to recognize the equal return. Not one with a long history of deep connections, Keith found himself out of his depth when his sleepless nights shifted their focus. With an entire family thrown into his life so abruptly, the moments he had once held so important and grand were reduced to specks of dust, compared to the thought of losing it just as suddenly.

Lance, who on the other hand gained and lost a family at the same time, knew and hid very well what a permanent loss of one of his friends would do to him. He was the one who usually reassured the others even when balancing on the edge of breakdown himself. His weakest moments he decided to hide from the world. Much like Keith, who was known to throw on a mask of indifference to both good and bad, Lance adorned his face with the brightest of smiles to cover the cracks on the inside. 

All paladins learned, despite all of this, that some people were worth taking this risk for - that family was. 

/.../

“Lance, we have to take off, now!” 

The urgency in Keith’s voice was usually enough to bring Lance out of his stupor, but the way his heart clenched seemed to reach even the furthest of cells and paralyze him. He was remotely aware of Keith’s fingers squeezing his own, but the words were hard to zero in on.

“Lance,” the softened voice managed to break through, as Keith’s fingers on Lance’s cheek seemed to push time back in motion. “I know you’re scared after the last mission, but… I’m still okay _now_. I’m still _here_ now.”

Lance swallowed a mouthful of air, as if he’d been out in the void of space up until that second. He followed with a few shuddering, but somewhat calming breaths, as he searched Keith’s eyes. 

With a last, long trembling exhale, he brought both his hands up to cradle his boyfriend’s face in them. Bringing their foreheads together, he took a moment of peace and felt grounded. 

“Alright.” He forced his lips into a tight smile, the most he could offer. “Don’t die on me, okay?”

Keith matched his smile, with a small, truthful “I’ll do my best” murmured right into Lance’s lips before he gently pulled them between his own.

They parted ways lighter, but still uneasy, when Lance heard Keith call back from the corner leading to Red’s tunnel. 

He looked unsure of his words but, to Lance’s contentment, they came out steady and with conviction. 

“I know it hurts to watch me leave and not know if I’m coming back. I feel the same way every time we head off somewhere, and sometimes I wish I didn’t love you so much so I wouldn’t ever have to feel that pain.” His hand grasped the edge of the tunnel entrance. “But for all the pain I feel when I see you walk away,” he said with sincerity and openness Lance had rarely seen on his face outside of their room, “I feel a thousand times more happiness when I see you come back.”

With that, Keith jumped into Red’s tunnel, taking a piece of Lance’s heart with him. Lance only lingered a moment longer, filling that void in his chest with a piece of Keith’s own heart.

_The closer you are, the more it hurts when you have to let go._

Lance jumped into Blue’s tunnel, not thinking of ways Keith could not come back, but of the happiness he would find in holding him when he does.


End file.
